Hey guys! We talked a few months ago about reviving this site. Is anyone really interested in this? If so, I have some ideas, but we really need a plan. If no one is interested then I don't want to burn any brain cells. If we do, I suggest a separate site. There is a lot we can do to drive traffic to this site be we need to work together on it. Am I waisting brain power thinking about this?

Gaydudelaf wrote:Hey guys! We talked a few months ago about reviving this site. Is anyone really interested in this? If so, I have some ideas, but we really need a plan. If no one is interested then I don't want to burn any brain cells. If we do, I suggest a separate site. There is a lot we can do to drive traffic to this site be we need to work together on it. Am I waisting brain power thinking about this?

I have several ideas that I think would kick-start this site up again. I wanted to hear what others thought first, but no one came forward. I am just getting ready for an extended trip so I have no time today to pursue this. I'll be back on Wednesday, May 25th, but I at least wanted to note my interest. If others don't come forward, you and I should brainstorm and get something done. I sent you a PM with my email address. I'll have limited computer access between now and the 25th, but I'll post here or email you when I get back.

That sounds awesome. Maybe we should plan a brainstorming session for the week after Memorial Day in chat or something where we can come up with a list of action items.

(On a personal note: Thanks for being such a good friend to Dustin and I. I as I work though my loss, it makes me smile when I think of the people like you (and many others on this board) who showed Dustin the love and friendship. It really added to the quality of his short life. Tom, I will always consider you a great friend!!!!

drtom wrote:

Gaydudelaf wrote:Hey guys! We talked a few months ago about reviving this site. Is anyone really interested in this? If so, I have some ideas, but we really need a plan. If no one is interested then I don't want to burn any brain cells. If we do, I suggest a separate site. There is a lot we can do to drive traffic to this site be we need to work together on it. Am I waisting brain power thinking about this?

I have several ideas that I think would kick-start this site up again. I wanted to hear what others thought first, but no one came forward. I am just getting ready for an extended trip so I have no time today to pursue this. I'll be back on Wednesday, May 25th, but I at least wanted to note my interest. If others don't come forward, you and I should brainstorm and get something done. I sent you a PM with my email address. I'll have limited computer access between now and the 25th, but I'll post here or email you when I get back.

I'd love to see a revival, but I think Facebook is the Walmart of the internet now. They pretty much crush their competitors like bugs.

This site has been a fun hobby, though. For me anyway. I never had to do any of the grunt work getting it going. But I'm here for inspiration. Unfortunately, success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Actually, when TomSA created the Beta website, it was a turn on the right direction. They just had technical problems. But, I am sure that by now there must be a newer version of that software that probably remedied some of those problems. Even, no one has touched that website, it boasts 2,999 members.

We need to bring the cover model contest, photo gallery, personals, and all that we had before and more.

nimby wrote:Me, oh me!!! Pleeeease!!! I've never been quiet about wanting to revive this place, and have come up with some ideas in the past. The facebook thing is not for me. Just let me know how I can help.

When Dr Tom gets back in town, maybe we can have a brainstorming session in Skype or Yahoo Im or something like that. I think we need to put our heads together.

I'm definitely into reviving this site also. We have a good community here and I don't want to see this site go away. I think the most important thing we can all do right now is to create new topics and respond to all of them. If we show visitors what a great diverse community we have others will be interested in sharing their ideas and thoughts also. I think this will also help others to remain and continue to post due to the the various topics we have.

I was thinking about a few ideas we could do also. Perhaps we could set up some type of book or movie club. Every week or so a new book/movie could be presented and the members will discuss what they thought of the book/movie. We could hold various contests too like best smile or best dressed etc. Also we could use our various hobbies to attract people. For example I like writing so I could set up a topic titled stories and share things that I've written or some ideas.

We have enough serious people here that this site shouldn't go away. We just need to encourage others to come back and share.

"As long as a person doesn't admit he's defeated, he is not defeated-- he's just a little behind, and isn't through fighting" ~ Darrel Royal

Phoenix6570 wrote:I'm definitely into reviving this site also. We have a good community here and I don't want to see this site go away. I think the most important thing we can all do right now is to create new topics and respond to all of them. If we show visitors what a great diverse community we have others will be interested in sharing their ideas and thoughts also. I think this will also help others to remain and continue to post due to the the various topics we have.

I was thinking about a few ideas we could do also. Perhaps we could set up some type of book or movie club. Every week or so a new book/movie could be presented and the members will discuss what they thought of the book/movie. We could hold various contests too like best smile or best dressed etc. Also we could use our various hobbies to attract people. For example I like writing so I could set up a topic titled stories and share things that I've written or some ideas.

We have enough serious people here that this site shouldn't go away. We just need to encourage others to come back and share.

See these are the types of ideas that need to be discussed. I am also thinking about talking the site up. For example, some of us are going to Palm Springs in the Summer. Maybe we could get on some of the gay sites in Palm Springs and talk about the get together and this board. I also think putting the Straightacting Score as a picture in the profile on some of the personals sites and the URL to the Butch Board.

I have created a separate discussion group on Google where we can list our ideas and come up with a list of action items to revive the Butch Board? I want to keep the discussion going. I think all of us have doubts about our ability to do this. Lets keep those out of this discussion for now and keep this positive. If after some efforts we are unable to do this, then we can throw in the towel and have a retirement party or something. Until that time, please keep your doubts to yourselves!!!

If you are willing to become a part of this effort and put some time into it, the group is below. You will have to apply since I made it private, but I will approve you.

matinee wrote:I work in IT and do ColdFusion dev. Let me know if you need help.

Thanks man!!!! Right now only two other people, DerWanderer and Furface, have joined the discussion group for reviving this site so I am going to give it a few more weeks to see if anyone else joins. I think their are more that are interested, but haven't joined the discussion yet. I am waiting to see if either anyone else joins the discussion or comes up with another approach. All ideas are valuable.

Sorry, Chip. I'd love to help revive this place & I've mentioned some ideas right on here. I know there lots of interest in it too, but me thinks the shift to face book and now signing on to google groups has some guys fearing their anonymity. Can't we brain brainstorm right from here or is there another purpose for the google group? I'm trying to take my life bck from the net right now and am backing off of facebook and don't really want to sign up for anything more. I think I got internet burn out.

"Why do we have asteroids in the hemisphere and hemmorroids in the a$$ ? "

nimby wrote:Sorry, Chip. I'd love to help revive this place & I've mentioned some ideas right on here. I know there lots of interest in it too, but me thinks the shift to face book and now signing on to google groups has some guys fearing their anonymity. Can't we brain brainstorm right from here or is there another purpose for the google group? I'm trying to take my life bck from the net right now and am backing off of facebook and don't really want to sign up for anything more. I think I got internet burn out.

Hmmm I hadn't considered that! Thanks for the idea. So are you suggesting we just create another thread or this one even? What is the best way to get the ball rolling on this?

You have to decide what format this site should take. Do we stick to Tom's original PG13 format, or if Tom is bowing out all together, is there another direction? PG, PG13, AA, X, XX, XXX? A combination some how? Who is the target market? Do you wanna make $$ with the site or is it more of a public service? These are some basic things we need to know before we can procede in any sort of direction. The best thing about this site is the community feel. What does the community want? Why are new members not hanging around? How about setting up a type of survey to email all the members and get their feelings?

"Why do we have asteroids in the hemisphere and hemmorroids in the a$$ ? "

Do we stick to Tom's original PG13 format, or if Tom is bowing out all together, is there another direction? PG, PG13, AA, X, XX, XXX?

[CHIP] I like the PG13 format what does everyone else think?

Who is the target market? Do you wanna make $$ with the site or is it more of a public service?

[CHIP] I like the public service idea but that is not my call. I think that one target market should be the closet guys that have no one to talk to but us. Some of them are dealing with an incredible conflict of values and they have no one to talk to. That is why I love this site because in many ways they rescued me from this conflict.

What does the community want?

[CHIP] From my perspective, the community want to exist with new blood and new fellowship. Further than that I am sure my good friends can enhance this answer.

Why are new members not hanging around?

[CHIP] Good questions. Ideas?

How about setting up a type of survey to email all the members and get their feelings?

[CHIP] Thats a great idea. Who would do this and what kind of questions would we ask?

I think having a bit more adult content would help keep people on the site. I'm certainly not suggesting this turn into a porn website but I think it will attract more guys.

We have good members and good topics but we have a hard time keeping members. I think everyone should think about why they stick around and what caused them to stay at first this will give a good idea as to what we need to do to keep members around.

For me it was a number of things. First off I didn't have any gay friends and noone knew I was gay when I first discovered this site. I felt relieved having a place to go to where I could ask questions, listen to and share ideas with others. Also the anonymity of it appealed to me also. Although now I'm comfortable having my picture up before I still had issues with doing things like that.

One of the biggest things I enjoyed which seems a bit lacking now was the true sense of community here. By reading the post I knew many of the members had met in person and knew each other for quite some time. This brought a dynamic to the site that not many others could match. This wasn't a gay dating site where you look for hookups/lovers/friends/etc. There was( and is still present) true conversations with thoughts behind them. It was really diverse and entertaining.

I like the idea of meeting in person and really get to know the people who are sharing their thoughts. Of course this is difficult but perhaps we could arrange something like skype meeting. Also we could have a page listing some of the most active members provide a pic( if they're willing) and a little bio on them. I think if we show others our community here people will want to stay. They'll realize they can be a part of a group even if they aren't there physically and they're getting true value and substance out of it.

"As long as a person doesn't admit he's defeated, he is not defeated-- he's just a little behind, and isn't through fighting" ~ Darrel Royal

It's a tight line you walk with controlling content, simply because if you move too far in either direction, you potentially alienate potential members, for lack of a better description.

People looking for "adult content," per se, are not necessarily looking for the social aspects that were one of the great strengths of this board back in it's heyday. So opening up this site to that sort of thing may draw them in, while at the same time bringing in folks who may not be interested in any other aspect of the site.

That being said, a happy medium might be to allow a couple of "anything goes" forums that are essentially un-moderated, but I would also point out that there may be a need for some flavor of age verification in order to grant access to those forums, if for no other reason than it creates a shield from legal liabilities. I'm not sure what the current state of the membership is these days, but I remember there being a few younger faces around here once upon a time.

Dollars and Cents...

An income stream, albeit minor, does give the site the ability to be self-sustaining, but then you run into other considerations. Personally, I detest ads on web sites, but that is also one of the methods that does not require much initial investment. Happy to hear what ideas people might have on this. I know we've got a few members with very shrewd business minds hanging around...

Retention

Why do new members not stick around? My answer to this is simple. They don't currently find enough here to keep their interest. Maybe this adds some value to the notion of surveying to see what current members are looking to get out of this site. I also point out, without wanting to reopen old wounds, that we did see a couple of mass exoduses occur around the time of certain "high drama" events. Personally, I didn't even realize that BB v3.0 was around because I hadn't talked to anyone who knew that had bothered to mention it...It was simply a chance running into Devilnuts on Yahoo that led me to discover that, "oh yeah, we've been back up for months...." Oops.

I hate to say it, but sometimes, it's all about advertising....

As a sidebar, we also have to consider that the evolution of social networking has changed the way a lot of people interact on the interweb. Facebook, DList and all that were either in their infancy or not around back when this got started. Different venues lead to different approaches. The Facebook group, while not hugely active yet has also managed to draw in a lot of old faces. The question remains as to how many of those folks might potentially return to the board, or if they even want to.

Ok. I've rambled on enough....Must find a bottle of scotch to I can pre-self-medicate for Monday.

The Beta site that TomSA created but which had many technical difficulties was an attempt to bring back the old site. That site is still around and generating thousands of members though it doesn't work. Would it be possible to get an updated version of the software to make this site work? I would hope that an updated version would have fixed the bugs.

We could use the Beta site as a springboard for what we want in a new SA website. I remember the monthly cover model contest was very popular and the fact there was a personals section brought in some people as well.

As for the PG-13 rating, I think it was TomSA' s intention to have a refuge for young gay teens where they could ask questions and talk about the feelings they are having about same sex attraction. I think it is important that we retain the site in this manner especially at the height of so many young gay teen suicides that have been happening around the country for a year now. I think a site like this becomes even more important than ever in these days and times.

This site and the people in it helped me so much in my coming out process ten years ago. I can't believe how time flies...wow, ten years since I came out to myself. I couldn't have done it withoutthe help of this Board.

I don't know Tom-SA's original intent with the PG-13 rating, but I'm definitely with Carlos on its need. An "adult eye candy" section would be momentarily appealing, but there are literally millions of places on the 'net to find that. This forum is consdierably more unique, and I treasure the open and easy flavor of it. It's nice to have somewhere I can discuss my relationship with people where there are no explanations needed of its basic nature.

With all due respect, Tom owns the copyright to the site. I think that any talk of reviving the site needs his explicit approval before any of us spends time planning. While it is interesting to posit exciting directions for straightacting.com, unless Tom says he supports any such efforts, it's like farting in a windstorm.